Boating Part 15

Some green meat at breakfast is a good thing. Watercress for choice--next best are small salad and lettuce (plain).

Tea is the recognised beverage; two cups are ample for a man. If he can dispense with sugar it will save him some ounces of fat, if he is at all of a flesh-forming habit of body. A boiled egg is often allowed, to wind up the repast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING TO SCALE.]

Luncheon depends, as to its substance, very much upon the time of year and the hours of exercise. If the work can be done in two sections, forenoon and afternoon, all the better. In hot summer weather it may be too sultry to take men out between breakfast and the mid-day meal.

Luncheon now usually consists of cold meat, to a reasonable amount, stale bread, green meat, and a gla.s.s of ale. In the days when the writer was at Oxford, the rule of the O.U.B.C. was to allow no meat at luncheon (only bread, b.u.t.ter, and watercress). This was a mistake; young men, daily wasting a large amount of tissue under hard work, had a natural craving for substantial food to supply the hiatus in the system. By being docked of it at luncheon, they gorged all the more at breakfast and dinner, where there was no limit as to quant.i.ty (of solids) to be consumed. They would have done better had their supply of animal food been divided into three instead of two daily allowances. They used to be allowed one slice of cold meat during their nine days' stay at Putney; it would have been well to have allowed this all through training.

Dinner consists mainly of roast beef or mutton, or choice of both. It is the custom to allow 'luxuries' of some sort every other day, e.g. fish one day, and a course of roast poultry (chicken) on another. 'Pudding'

is sometimes allowed daily, sometimes it only appears in its turn with 'luxuries.' It generally consists of stewed fruit, with plain boiled rice, or else calves'-foot jelly. A crust, or biscuit, with a little b.u.t.ter and some watercress or lettuce, make a final course before the cloth is cleared.

Drink is ale, for a standard; light claret, with water, is nowadays allowed for choice, and no harm in it. A pint is the normal measure; sometimes an extra half-pint may be conceded on thirsty days.

An orange and biscuit for dessert usually follow. In the writer's days every man had two gla.s.ses of port wine. He thinks this was perhaps more than was required (as regards alcohol); one gla.s.s may suffice, but there may be no reason against the second winegla.s.s being conceded, with water subst.i.tuted, if the patient is really dry. Claret also may take the place of port after dinner. Fashions change; in the writer's active days, claret would have been scorned as un-English for athletes.

Such is the usual nature of training diet; of the exercise of the day, more anon. There does not seem to be much fault to find with the _regime_ above sketched; in fact, the proof of soundness of the diet may be seen in the good condition usually displayed by those who adopt it.

All the same, the writer, when he has trained crews, has slightly modified the above in a few details. He has allowed (a little) fish or poultry daily, as an extra course, and for the same reason has always endeavoured to have both beef and mutton on the table. He believes that change of dish aids appet.i.te, so long as the varieties of food do not clash in digestion. Men become tired with a monotony of food, however wholesome. Puddings the writer does not think much of, provided that other varieties of dish can be obtained. A certain amount of vegetable food is necessary to blend with the animal food, else boils are likely to break out; but green vegetables such as are in season are far better than puddings for this purpose. Salad, daily _with the joint_, will do good. It is unusual to see it, that is all. The salad should not be dressed. Lettuce, endive, watercress, smallcress, beetroot, and some minced spring onions to flavour the whole, make a pa.s.sable dish, which a hungry athlete will much relish. Asparagus, spinach, and French beans may be supplied when obtainable. Green peas are not so good, and broad beans worse. The tops of young nettles, when emerald green, make a capital dish, like spinach, rather more tasty than the latter vegetable.

Such nettles can only be picked when they first shoot; old nettles are as bad as flowered asparagus.

If a crew train in the fruit season, fruit to a small amount will not harm them, as a finale to either breakfast or dinner. But the fruit should be _very_ fresh, not bruised nor decomposed; strawberries, gooseberries, grapes, peaches, nectarines, apricots (say one of the last three, or a dozen of the smaller fruits, for a man's allowance), all are admissible. Not so melons, nor pines--so medical friends a.s.sert.

In hot summer weather it is as well to dine about 2 P.M., to row in the cool of the evening, towards 7 P.M., and to sup about 8.30 or 9 P.M. It is a mistake to a.s.sume that because a regatta will come off midday, therefore those who train for it should accustom themselves to a burning sun for practice. With all due deference to Herodotus (who avers that the skeleton skulls of quondam combatant Persians and Egyptians could be known apart on the battle-field, because the turban-clad heads of Persians produced soft skulls which crumbled to a kick, while the sun-baked heads of Egyptians were hard as bricks), we do not believe in this sort of acclimatisation. If men have to be trained to row a midnight race, they would be best prepared for it by working at their ordinary daylight hours, not by turning night into day for weeks beforehand. On the same principle it would seem to be a mistake to expose oarsmen in practice to excessive heat to which they have not been accustomed, solely because they are likely eventually to row their race under a similar sun. In really oppressive weather at Henley the writer and his crews used to dine about 2 P.M. as aforesaid, finish supper at 9 or 9.30, and go to bed two hours later. They rose proportionately later next day, taking a good nine hours in bed before they turned out. So far as their records read, those crews do not seem on the whole to have suffered in condition by this system of training.

Many men are parched with thirst at night. The heat of the stomach, rather overladen with food, tends to this. The waste of the system has been abnormal during the day; the appet.i.te, i.e. instinct to replenish the waste, has also been abnormal, and yet the capacity of the stomach is only normal. Hence the stomach finds it hard work to keep pace with the demands upon it. Next morning these men feel 'coppered,' as if they had drunk too much overnight, and yet it is needless to say they have not in any way exceeded the moderate scale of alcohol already propounded above as being customary.

The best preventive of this tendency to fevered mouths is a cup of 'water gruel,' or even a small slop-basin of it, the last thing before bedtime. It should not contain any milk; millet seed and oatmeal grits are best for its composition. The consumption of this light supper should be _compulsory_, whether it suits palates or not. The effect of it is very striking; it seems to soothe and promote digestion, and to allay thirst more than three times its amount of water would do. Some few men cannot, or profess to be unable to, stomach this gruel. The writer has had to deal with one or two such in his time. He had his doubts whether their stomach or their whims were to blame; but in such cases he gave way, and allowed a cup of chocolate instead--_without milk_. (Milk blends badly with meat and wine at the end of a hard day.) Chocolate is rather more fattening than gruel, otherwise it answers the same purpose, of checking any disposition to 'coppers.'

It has been a time-honoured maxim with all trainers, that it is the fluids which lay on fat and which spoil the wind. Accordingly, reduction in the consumption of fluid has always been one of the first principles of training, and it is a sound one so long as it is not carried to excess. It is not at the outset of training that thirst so oppresses the patient, but at the end of the first week and afterwards, especially when temperature rises and days are sultry. Vinegar over greens at dinner tends to allay thirst; the use of pepper rather promotes it. In time the oarsman begins to accustom himself somewhat to his diminished allowance of fluid, and he learns to economise it during his meals, to wash down his solids.

A coach should be reasonably firm in resisting unnecessary pet.i.tions for extra fluid, but he must exercise discretion, and need not be always obdurate. On this subject the writer reproduces his opinion as expressed in 'Oars and Sculls' in 1873:--

The tendency to 'coppers' in training is no proof of insobriety.

The whole system of training is unnatural to the body. It is an excess of nature. Regular exercise and plain food are not in themselves unnatural, but the amount of each taken by the subject in training is what is unnatural. The wear and tear of tissue is more than would go on at ordinary times, and consequently the body requires more commissariat than usual to replenish the system. The stomach has all its work cut out to supply the commissariat, and leave the tendency to indigestion and heat in the stomach. A cup of gruel seldom fails to set this to rights, and a gla.s.s of water besides may also be allowed if the coach is satisfied that a complaint of thirst is genuine.

There is no greater folly than stinting a man in his liquid. He should not be allowed to blow himself out with drink, taking up the room of good solid food; but to go to the other extreme, and to spoil his appet.i.te for want of an extra half-pint at dinner, or a gla.s.s of water at bedtime, is a relic of barbarism. The appet.i.te is generally greatest about the end of the first week of training. By that time the frame has got sufficiently into trim to stand long spells of work at not too rapid a pace. The stomach has begun to accustom itself to the extra demands put upon it, and as at this time the daily waste and loss of flesh is greater than later on, when there is less flesh to lose, so the natural craving to replenish the waste of the day is greater than at a later period. At this time the thirst is great, and though drinking out of hours should be forbidden, yet the appet.i.te should not, for reasons previously stated, be suffered to grow stale for want of sufficient liquid at meal times in proportion to the solids consumed.

Such views would have been reckoned scandalously heretical twenty-five or more years ago, but the writer feels that he is unorthodox in good company, and is glad to find Mr. E. D. Brickwood, in his treatise on 'Boat-racing,' 1875, laying down his own experiences on the same subject to just the same effect. Mr. Brickwood's remarks on the subject of 'thirst' (as per his index) may be studied with advantage by modern trainers. He says (page 201):--

As hunger is the warning voice of nature telling us that our bodies are in need of a fresh supply of food, so thirst is the same voice warning us that a fresh supply of liquid is required.

Thirst, then, being, like hunger, a natural demand, may safely be gratified, and with water in preference to any other fluid.

The prohibition often put upon the use of water or fluid in training may often be carried too far. To limit a man to a pint or two of liquid per day, when his system is throwing off three or four times that quant.i.ty through the medium of the ordinary secretions, is as unreasonable as to keep him on half-rations.

The general thirst experienced by the whole system, consequent upon great bodily exertion or extreme external heat, has but one means of cure--drink, in the simplest form attainable. Local thirst, usually limited to the mucous linings, of the mouth and throat, may be allayed by rinsing the mouth and gargling the throat, sucking the stone of stone fruit, or a pebble, by which to excite the glands in the affected part, or even by dipping the hands into cold water. Fruit is here of very little benefit, as the fluid pa.s.ses at once to the stomach, and affords no relief to the parts affected; but after rinsing the mouth, small quant.i.ties may be swallowed slowly. The field for the selection of food to meet the waste of the body under any condition of physical exertions is by no means restricted. All that the exceptional requirements of training call for is to make a judicious selection; but, in recognising this principle, rowing men have formed a dietary composed almost wholly of restrictions the effect of which has been to produce a sameness in diet which has almost been as injurious in some cases as the entire absence of any laws would be in others.

It should be borne in mind that Mr. Brickwood's field as an amateur lay princ.i.p.ally in sculling, which entailed solitary training, unlike that of a member of an eight or four. He had therefore to train himself, and to trust to his own judgment when so doing, blending self-denial with discretion. He is, in the above quotation, apparently speaking of the principles under which he governed himself when training. That they were crowned with good success his record as an athlete shows, for he twice won the Diamond Sculls, and also held the Wingfield (amateur championship) in 1861. Such testimony therefore is the more valuable coming from a successful and self-trained sculler.

As regards sleep, the writer lays great stress upon obtaining a good amount of it. Even if a night is sultry, and sleep does not come easily, still the oarsman can gain something by mere physical repose, though his brain may now and then not obtain rest so speedily as he could wish. The adage ascribed to King George III. as to hours of sleep, 'six for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,' is unsound. He who is credited with having propounded it, showed in his later years that, either his brain had suffered from deficiency of rest, or that it never had been sufficiently brilliant to justify much attention being bestowed on his philosophy. Probably he never did a really hard day's (still less a week's) labour, of either brain or body, in his life. Had he done so, he would have found that not six, nor seven, and often not eight hours, are too much to enable the wasted tissues of brain or body, or both, to recuperate. It is when in a state of repose that the blood, newly made from the latest meal, courses through the system and replenishes what has been wasted during the day. Recruits are never measured for the standard at the end of a day's march, but next day--after a good rest.

Cartilage, sinew, muscle, alike waste. The writer used, after racing the Henley course, perhaps thrice in an evening's practice (twice in a four or eight and afterwards in a pair-oar or sculling boat, &c), to take a good nine hours' sound sleep, and awoke all the better for it. Some men keep on growing to a comparatively late age in life; such men require more sleep, while thus increasing in size, than others who have earlier attained full bulk and maturity. As a rule, and regardless of what many other trainers may say to the contrary, the writer believes that the majority of men in training may sleep nine hours with advantage.

The period of training varies according to circ.u.mstances. A man of twenty-five and upwards, who has been lying by for months, it may be for a year or two, can do with three months of it. The first half should be less severe than the last. He can begin with steady work, to redevelop his muscles, and to reduce his bulk (if he is much over weight) by degrees. The last six weeks should be 'strict' in every sense. He can get into 'hunting' condition in the first six weeks, and progress to 'racing' condition in the succeeding six.

University crews train from five to six weeks. The men are young, and have, most of them, been in good exercise some time before strict training begins.

College crews cannot give much more than three weeks to train for the summer b.u.mping races; tideway crews have been doing a certain amount of work for weeks before they go into strict training for Henley; this last stage usually lasts about four weeks.

It is often supposed that a man needs less training for a short than for a long course. This is a mistake. The longer he prepares himself, so long as he does not overdo himself, the better he will be. Long and gradual training is better than short and severe reductions. Over a long course, when an untrained man once finds nature fail him, more ground will be lost than over a short course: _cela va sans dire_: but that is no argument against being thoroughly fit for even a half-mile row. The shorter the course, the higher the pressure of pace, and the crew that cracks first for want of condition--loses (_ceteris paribus_).

Athletes of the running path will agree that it is as important to train a man thoroughly for a quarter-mile race as for a three-mile struggle.

Pace kills, and it is condition which enables the athlete to endure the pace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SMOKING IS FORBIDDEN.]

Smoking is, as every schoolboy knows, forbidden in training. However, _pro forma_, the fact must be recorded that it is illicit. It spoils the freedom of the lungs, which should be as elastic as possible, in order to enable them to oxygenate properly the extra amount of blood which circulates under violent exertions.

Aperients at the commencement of training used to be _de rigueur_.

Young men of active habits hardly need them. Anyhow, no trainer should attempt to administer them on his own account; if he thinks the men need physic at the outset, let him call in a medical man to prescribe for them.

WORK.

We have said that proper diet keeps an oarsman up to the work which is necessary to bring him into good condition. Having detailed the _regime_ of diet, and its appurtenances, such as sleep, we may now deal with the system of work itself.

One item of work we have incidentally dealt with, to wit, the morning walk; but it was necessary to handle this detail at that stage because it had a reference to the morning tub and morning meal.

The work which is set for a crew should be guided by the distance of time from the race. If possible, oarsmen should have their work lightened somewhat towards the close of training, and it is best to get over the heavy work, which is designed to reduce weight as well as to clear the wind, at a comparatively early stage of the training.

There is also another factor to be taken into calculation by the trainer, and that is whether, at the time when sharp work is necessary to produce condition, his crew are sufficiently advanced as oarsmen to justify him in setting them to perform that work at a fast stroke in the boat. Not all crews require to be worked upon the same system, irrespective of the question of stamina and health.

Suppose a crew are backward as oarsmen and also behindhand in condition.

If such a crew are set to row a fast stroke in order to blow themselves and to accustom their vascular system to high pressure, their style may be damaged. If on the other hand they do no work except rowing at a slow stroke until within a few days of the race, they will come to the post short of condition. Such a crew should be kept at a slow stroke in the boat, in order to enable them to learn style, for a fortnight or so; but meantime the trainer should put them through some sharp work upon their legs. He should set them to run a mile or so after the day's rowing.

This will get off flesh, and will clear the wind, and meantime style can be studied in the boat. Long rows without an easy are a mistake for backward men who are also short of work. When the pupil gets blown at the end of a few minutes he relapses into his old faults, and makes his last state worse than the first.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'RUN A MILE OR TWO.']

Training not only gets off superfluous flesh, but also lays on muscle.

The sooner the fat is off the sooner does the muscle lay on. The commissariat feeds the newly developing muscles better if there is no tax upon it to replenish the fat as well. For this reason, apart from the importance of clearing the wind, heavy work should come early in training. When a crew who have been considerably reduced in weight early in their course of training, feed up towards the last, and gain in weight, it is a good sign, and shows that their labours have been judiciously adjusted; the weight which they pick up at the close of training is new muscle replacing the discarded fat.

In training college eights for summer races there is not scope for training on the above system. The time is too short, some of the men are already half-fit, and have been in work of some sort or other during the spring; while one or two of them may have been lying idle for a twelvemonth. In such cases a captain must use his own discretion; he can set his grosser men to do some running while he confines those who are fitter to work only in the ship. As a rule, however, unless men have no surplus flesh to take off, all oarsmen are the better for a little running at the end of the day during the early part of training. It prepares their wind for the time when a quick stroke will be required of them. A crew who have been rowing a slow stroke and who have meantime been improved in condition by running, will take to the quick stroke later on more kindly than a ditto cla.s.s crew who have done no running, and whose condition has been obtained only by rowing exercise. The latter crew have been rowing all abroad while short of wind, and have thereby not corrected, and probably have contracted, faults. The former crew will have had better opportunities of improving their style, will be more like machinery, and will be less blown when they are at last asked to gallop in the boat.

For the first few days it will be well to row an untrained crew over easy half-miles. A long day's work in the boat will not harm them: on the contrary, it will tend to shake them together; tired men can row well as to style, but men out of breath cannot row. At the end of a week or so, the men can cover a mile at a hard slow grind without an easy. If there is plenty of time, i.e. some five weeks of training, a good deal of paddling can be done, alternating with hard rowing at a slow stroke.

If there are only three weeks to train, and men are gross, much paddling cannot be spared. If again time is short and men have already been in work for other races, and do not want much if any reduction in weight, then a good deal of the day's work may be done at a paddle.

Thirty strokes a minute is plenty for slow rowing. Some strokes, though good to race behind, have a difficulty in rowing slow; especially after having had a spell at a fast stroke. It is important to inculcate upon the stroke that thirty a minute should be his 'walking' pace, and should always be maintained except when he is set to do a course, or a part of one, or to row a start. When once he is told to do something like racing over a distance, he must calculate his stroke to orders, whether thirty-two, -four, -six, -eight, &c. But when the 'gallop' is over, then the normal 'thirty' should resume. It is during the 'off' work, when rowing or paddling to or from a course, that there is most scope for coaching, and faults are best cured at a slow stroke.

In training for a short course, such as Henley and college races, a crew may be taken twice each day backwards and forwards over the distance; the first time at thirty a minute each way, the second time at the 'set'

pace of the day, over the course, relapsing into the usual 'thirty' on the reverse journey. The 'set' stroke depends on the stage of training.

A fortnight before the race the crew may begin to cover the course, on the second journey, at about thirty-one a minute. A stroke a day can be added to this, until racing pace is reached. If men seem stale, an off-day should be given at light work. Meantime, each day, attention should be paid to 'starting,' so that all may learn to get hold of the first stroke well together. In order to accustom the men to a quicker stroke and to getting forward faster, a few strokes may be rowed, in each start, at a pace somewhat in advance of the rate of stroke set for the day's grind over the course. A couple such starts as this per diem benefit both crew and coach. The crew begin to feel what a faster stroke will be like, without being called upon to perform it over the whole distance before they are fit to go; the coach will be able to observe each man's work at the faster stroke. Many a green oarsman looks promising while the stroke is slow, but becomes all abroad when called upon to row fast. It is best to have some insight to these possible failings early in training, else it may be too late to remedy them or to change the man on the eve of battle.

Towards the close of training the crew should do their level best once or twice over the course, to accustom them to being rowed out, and to give them confidence in their recuperative powers; also to enable the stroke to feel the power of his crew, and to form an opinion as to how much he can ask them to do in the race. The day before the racing begins, work should be light.